FDA Bans Concentrated Morphine and Others
Wednesday April 1, 2009
In a move that will have a huge impact on hospices in the U.S., the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is sending letters of warning to prescribers and distributors of non-FDA approved opiod pain relievers, which includes the most popular hospice drug Roxanol. Roxanol is one brand of a concentrated form of oral morphine solution (20mg of morphine per milliliter of liquid). It's used so commonly in hospice patients because the high concentration makes it easy to give to patients who have difficulty swallowing or have altered level of consciousness. Patients who would otherwise have to resort to injections or infusions can have a small amount of liquid morphine dropped under their tongue instead.
Now it looks as though hospices and pharmacists will have to get creative in their delivery of pain medication. I'm concerned that more patients will have to have pain meds administered by injection, infusion, or rectal suppository, all of which are not comfortable for the patient or as easy for their caregivers to administer. I imagine compounding pharmacies will be scrambling to develop new delivery methods and concentrations. I hope, for the comfort and safety of hospice patients and their caregivers, that they are successful.
Learn more about morphine use in palliative care.
Find out which medications are affected by the FDA ban.
Comments
So, now apparent, comes the “changes” promised
by this fascist Demogogucrat Party.
The FDA just cannot seem to get its act together, and this move is one more proof. If something doesn’t make sense then there is something we don’t know. Either Roxanol’s competitor has made a fuss, or a blanket policy of removing approvals on grandfathered drugs was handed down… ?? who knows?? How sad that no one figured out these unanticipated consequences and now those who are already suffering will suffer even more.
This is not a positive development. As someone who handled home hospice for my mother, who was dying of lung cancer, I was so amazed at the ability to control her comfort and pain with the liquid morphine, and it was such a blessing to have this medication to help her be comfortable until her last breath, as part of the overall hospice process. I hope that liquid high-dose morphine remains available in some form for hospice use.
As someone who has used this sort of pain med for 6+ yrs it is now back to a life of pain that leaves me wondering if I even want to make to the next again. It was an endless quest to find someone brave enough to write a prescription for it and a pharmacy to fill it. I finally thought those days were over and lived normally once again. Only to have others who have no idea what we go through to take it away. The FDA says there are plenty of other pills to fill the liquid med’s place. Maybe so if you can take them. What if you can’t?